Hosting Homeless A Matter Of Faiths

Tamara Dietrich

They were a hard-knock bunch wandering abroad in the cold on Christmas Eve, 61 homeless men and women and nary a room for them anywhere in Hampton Roads.

But they spent the night the way Jesus might, if he were in their midst -- gathered with friends and strangers around a communal meal, listening as a man broke a loaf of bread and intoned in Hebrew:

"Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha-olam ..."

"Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe ..."

No tinsel. No tree. No presents. No Rudolph. Any star blazing overhead wasn't the Star of the Bethlehem, but rather, the Star of David.

But the kosher turkey dinner was copious, and the coffeepot was on all night. In the morning after breakfast, they weren't sent on their way by 7 a.m., as usual. Instead, they were invited to remain the whole of Christmas Day, resting, reading or watching the big-screen TV.

This is the way dozens of the area's homeless spend Christmas every year -- sheltered in a Jewish synagogue.

The congregation at Rodef Sholom Temple on Whealton Road in Hampton gladly takes on Christmas week in the seasonal rotation -- administered by the nonprofit group HELP (Hampton Ecumenical Lodging and Provisions) -- in which houses of worship take turns sheltering the homeless throughout the winter.

The temple does this to spell their Christian neighbors and allow them to spend the holiest days of the Christian calendar with their own families.

As for the homeless guests, they're just grateful to spend Christmas indoors -- they don't care about the trappings.

"They don't ask for the tree," says Susan Longman, volunteer coordinator for the temple's Homeless Week. "They're just happy to have a place to be."

Longman has helped plan and execute Homeless Week ever since the temple first signed on several years ago. On Tuesday night, she and three of her four sons even worked the overnight shift at the temple, sitting up all night playing cards and games in case any of the guests needed anything, punch-drunk by morning.

The number of guests on any given night rises and falls right along with the outside temperatures, Longman says. Many of the faces she sees from one year to the next are the same, but there are always new ones, too.

Some are hardcore homeless who have learned to live on the streets. Others have stumbled into homelessness and are pushing hard to get back on their feet. Many have jobs, but can't afford a place of their own, or can't find a landlord who will accept a checkered past. Many are veterans - - Vietnam, the Gulf War, even Iraq.

They tend to share a level of camaraderie, Longman says, and are self-policing. If someone gets out of line, the rest put him right back in. At mealtimes, the men usually insist that the women in their midst -- there aren't many -- go through the food lines first.

Every year at the temple, the call for Homeless Week volunteers goes up around the High Holy Days, usually in September. The interim is spent coordinating foodstuffs and the many shifts of volunteers for everything from checking in guests every evening to cleaning up after breakfast the next morning.

Food preparation is a major operation in itself, especially for a conservative Jewish temple so kosher that it has two kitchens -- one to prepare dairy meals and one to prepare meat meals. Even the salt shakers are segregated for dairy and for meat.

The kitchens this week are well-stocked with huge cans of pineapple chunks, sliced peaches and tuna, boxes of lasagna, bags of chips, tubs of condiments, packs of hot dogs, fat jars of peanut butter, loaves of bread, vats of chili.

Everything must meet kosher standards, beginning with how it's grown or the moment it's slaughtered right through to the way it's prepared.

The Jewish Sabbath, or Shabbat -- running sunset Friday to sunset Saturday -- is even more strict.

Tonight at the temple, for instance, no observant Jew can use a knife or scissors to cut up anything but food. They can't write. They can't answer the telephone. They can't raise or lower the gas flames on the temple's stove. They can't turn electricity on or off. (They can however, ask a non-Jewish volunteer or guest to do it for them.)

"Just explain to them that it's a Jewish thing," read the cheeky instructions for volunteers written by longtime organizer James Barnett. "They won't get it, but they rarely question you."

But for most of the guests, Christmas week is less about the meals or the holiday fuss.

"The interaction, the human connection -- that means more to them sometimes than the food," Longman says.

And so tonight, after the guests have spaced their mats and blankets around the perimeter of the temple hall or beneath the dining tables, after they've eaten their dinner, they'll be invited to sit in on the Shabbat service.

If they do, they'll observe the traditional lighting of the candles. They'll listen to readings from the Torah -- the five books of Moses in the Old Testament -- and to prayers and songs in Hebrew. And even if they don't understand the words, they can recognize human kindness when they see it.